INSIDE: If you get the virus — who to call, what to tell them.

Calling up everyone you’ve come into contact with over the past 14 days, and telling them to self-isolate because you might have exposed them to a deadly airborne virus, sounds like a frustrating experience you might wish to to avoid.

But as Florida opens back up for business, everybody’s chances of catching the new coronavirus are sure to rise. And in a state where there are only 500 contact tracers — and no plans to hire more — much of the job of warning individuals who have been exposed and need to quarantine will have to be carried out by private citizens who themselves did the exposing.

So even if you haven’t tested positive for the virus — yet — grab a notebook and pen. Here’s a guide on who to call, what to tell them, and how to keep track of it all in order to help break the chain of transmission and slow the virus spreading.

Isn’t there an app for that?

Nope, not in Florida. Unlike Australia, Singapore, Utah or the Dakotas, which have all created their own contact tracing apps, the state of Florida doesn’t plan to automate its contacttracing operations.

That may be, in part, because there’s a national effort to develop a contacttracing program that uses Bluetooth technology to track smartphone users while keeping their health and privacy data anonymous.

It is unclear when that project will produce a workable program, and even when it does come out, experts warn that it will work only if there are lots of users on the same platform.

“We need lots of people using the same apps,” said Samuel Scarpino, assistant professor in the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University, who also warns that caution is warranted when developing a tool like this, since its privacy implications are serious.

“We do need to be very cautious about what kind of decisions we decide to make about privacy and COVID-19,” he said.

If you feel something, say something.

As soon as you begin to exhibit symptoms, experts say it might be a good idea to start telling the people in your immediate family or social circle to take extra precautions, like wearing a mask indoors around you or to begin completely isolating.

Go ahead and try to get tested. If you test positive, it’s time to pick up the phone.

“Get in touch with everyone you’ve been in contact with and encourage them to get in touch with everyone they’ve been in contact with,” Scarpino said.

He said that this virus moves quickly enough that by the time an infected person’s positive test results come back, the virus can have already gone through two generations. That means the people you may have exposed have already, in turn, exposed others

“Assume it’s one hop removed from you,” Scarpino said.

The old, the infirm, and people you’ve had more than 20 minutes of face-toface contact with should be a priority for who you should call first.

Dr. Neil Abernathy, associate professor of biomedical informatics and medical education at the University of Washington, suggests that people follow the same practices that actual contact tracers might follow when trying to figure that out.

“Think back in the week or 10 days, who have you potentially exposed?” said Abernathy, who suggests that people break up their lives into three circles labeled family, work, and social life, to help them think through the task.

“A contact tracer would try to rank individuals by the degree of exposure and risk,” he said, prioritizing those people you’ve had prolonged face-to-face contact with for over 20 minutes without a mask, along with elderly grandparents or those with pre-existing conditions.

Proactive disclosure has the added benefit of often being faster than the professional contact tracers, who frequently have to wait for information about a positive test result to be transmitted to the local health department.

What should you say?

It might be an awkward phone call, but it could save a life.

But because of how fast the new coronavirus moves, it makes sense to go well beyond your immediate social circle and try to inform anyone you’ve come into direct, prolonged, face-toface contact with in the past 14 days, no matter how difficult or awkward the conversation may be.

But there are people you don’t have to try to get in touch with.

“If you went to the grocery store and were wearing a mask and were there for a brief period of time, I just think there’s much lower risk,” said Dr. Mary Jo Trepka, chair of the department of epidemiology at Florida International University.

“Walking past somebody on the sidewalk isn’t sufficient contact,” Abernathy said.

What about my job?

Every workplace is likely to have different policies regarding sick leave and when to tell supervisors if you develop symptoms, but some companies are proactively engaging in their own form of contact tracing in order to ensure that the virus doesn’t spread within their workplace, and other companies are stepping in to provide the contact-tracing service.